Cost savings, process efficiencies and productivity are the key benefits that businesses are looking for when adopting Software-as-a-Service, according to a new regional survey conducted on behalf of Oracle.

The IDC survey of 160 CIOs from large organisations in the Africa, Middle East and Eastern Europe region, showed that more than 60% of all companies across major verticals have adopted or are in the process of implementing cloud solutions. Forty-eight percent of companies are currently using SaaS technology with another 31 % planning to use cloud in the next one or two years. 22% currently used Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) with a further 36 % planning on using it in the next 12 to 24 months.

There are still concerns around the cloud model, with 55% of respondents saying that they believed cloud offered value, but cost and availability of bandwidth inhibited adoption locally. Organisations that did adopt SaaS invested in network optimisation and additional security solutions to ensure overall SaaS quality.

Access to better technology (58%) and faster deployment of additional IT resources (53%) were the top two drivers for SaaS adoption. Delivering more projects without recruiting additional headcount (51%) and standardization (50%) were the third and fourth key drivers. Other key reasons for adopting SaaS included access to better quality of IT skills (49%) and access to the latest software and techniques (48%).

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The research shows that many companies in the region have a ‘SaaS' also attitude, and will assess SaaS-solutions at the same time as they consider on-premise deployments of software.

Dana Murugan, Senior Director, Marketing, Oracle commented: "Modern cloud applications from Oracle help customers reimagine business, practices, and experiences. The best-of-breed Software as a Service (SaaS) applications in Oracle Cloud are integrated with social, mobile, and analytic capabilities to help deliver the experiences customers expect, the talent to succeed, and the performance the market demands.

"The results of the survey indicate that SaaS adoption is continuing to rise in the region and we look forward to supporting our customers with the latest technology that will enable them to achieve business objectives."